Observations In The Evensong
by EstellaB
Summary: ..Swallows and Amazons, Cootverse..--It wouldn't be make-believe if you believed in me--. Dot is herself, and that can be quite captivating. --Not actually poetry; maybe poetic prose?


_**((It won't be make-believe if you believe in me**_**))**_** In which Dot is herself, and that can be quite captivating. **_

**A giftfic for Dusty, for being such a patient, faithful, and generally wonderful reviewer. **

**I'm about a third of the way through my next chapter of CK; hopefully it shouldn't be much longer coming! Apologies for the slightly rubbish formatting of this; I unfortunately can't upload the proper format from my computer, because ffnet won't let me.  
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_**1. It's enough for this wide-eyed wanderer that we've got this far. **_

He was woken by a soft thud. A good skipper never sleeps when his ship may be in danger, so, even though they were moored in the rather sleepily out-of-date harbour at Gulling, Tom slipped silently out of his bunk and left the cabin, being quite careful not to wake Dick.

It was very early in the morning when he got out on deck, and the sunrise was just beginning to spill over the horizon. Dawn over the Broads was normally beautiful, but that morning, it was rather clouded, the colours murky. Rain wouldn't affect his enjoyment of the day, but it might that of the Death and Glories, whose chimney badly needed mending. Out of loyalty, Tom hoped it would clear up. Not having located the source of the noise, he rubbed a tired hand over his eyes and looked his ship over. He couldn't help smiling; Dorothea was sitting on the roof of the cabin, one foot tucked up underneath her, and the other knocking gently against the porthole; there was his thudding. She was staring up, wide-eyed, and watching the sunrise. Only Dorothea could see beauty and drama in even those unimpressive skies, and suddenly he didn't feel like sleeping at all.

_**2. If I were a sculptor-but then again, no.**_

As he sat down next to her, Dot hardly acknowledged his presence; far too caught up in the faded poetry above her, except that she tugged slightly on the bottom of her cotton chemise. The silence and stillness was so comfortable that, a few minutes later-or maybe a long time, he wasn't sure-even the start of the morning chorus seemed an interruption. Once the calm had been broken, however, Dot turned to him, looking slightly worried.

"I'm glad to be awake," he told her, before she could apologise.

She smiled, and the words changed shape on her lips. "So am I; being up before the sun makes me feel absurdly superior."

"Not sure the sun will be up at all today," he said practically. He smiled as well, despite the clouds, and the lack of progress, and everything. "Which clouds were you watching?"

"Those ones." Dot pointed. The cluster she pointed at were beginning to disintegrate, and Tom had never been much good at cloudgazing anyway; he sat patiently and awaited an explanation.

_**3. Come to watch your flowers growing.**_

As Dot's story spilled out, he could almost see it take shape amongst the dispersing clouds; there were cornfields and a lonely child and a scarecrow, and her ridiculous, cobbled-together tale made perfect sense to him. She gathered speed and passion as she told, and all those loose threads were pulled together; he was almost caught up enough to make his own additions, and he knew the story would have adapted and changed and absorbed them. It might have been her scatty, meandering narrative, or her contagious enthusiasm, but it gave him a shock when he realised that his wish from earlier had come true; the murky sky had cleared and the sun was making tracks; the others were all dirty stopabeds and the play Dot had been directing had no cast any more.

As loath as he was to interrupt her before she reached her conclusion (secretly, he wondered if the story had a conclusion; it seemed that it could have woven itself into every inch of their lives, and continued quite indefinitely), it was necessary that they get ready for the day; his shoulders were already burning from the June sun, and it was long past dawn.

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_**4. The gypsy in me.**_

He'd gone on deck to escape sweltering heat and midges, both of which took up too much space in the cabin he shared with Dick. Silver, the moonlight was catching and blurring the sides of his ship, making her look almost otherworldly. It seemed rather unfair, at least to him, that the colours of the night could be so cool and collected, in such sharp contrast to the unprecedented heat of that June. The water looked even stiller, and he was almost tempted to go for a midnight swim. Only his lack of bathers, and a dread of going back down into his cabin to find them, prevented him.

Lying down on the deck, staring blankly into the sky, he wanted the opposite of what he had wanted that morning; then he had been hoping that the rain would hold off, but now they desperately needed a thunderstorm. He was interrupted by soft footsteps; well, Dick had been snoring his head off five minutes ago, and his cousins rarely bothered to tread gently, though they had the ability.

"I was almost going to go for a midnight swim," she said quietly, lying down a few feet away.

_**5. Dreams, and they are made out of real things.**_

_Great minds_; Tom laughed. "You've spent too much time with Titty. She's turned you into a bohemian." At least Dot had bothered to put on bathers; she wasn't in her chemise this time. "Though I was thinking about it as well."

"The Admiral would have a genuine fit if she knew I'd considered it. It's hardly proper, is it?" She was torn between the two, and that was because of an expensive girls' school just outside London. For an instant, Tom wondered just how ladylike and timid Dot would have been, had she never met the fierce Lake girls. He dismissed the thought as soon as it occurred to him; Dot would always have become herself; how could it happen any other way? "This moonlight is lovely, though; look at the fairies."

It took Tom a minute to realise she was actually referring to the midges, which, kissed by nightlight, did seem rather more magical. Moonlight improves everything, except those things that cannot be improved.

_**6. Can I just have one more moondance with you?**_

Fairies flying overhead and dryads in the water; Tom didn't know when that had become so plausible. It was bewitching, and if his senses hadn't been so acutely alert, he would have been lulled to sleep. They lay, comfortably not talking, for thousands of hours, until a church clock chimed somewhere and he realised it was still only one.

"Not to be a-bed after midnight is to be up betimes, and _diluculo surgere_, thou know'st," Dot quoted, a laugh on the sides of her voice.

"Nay; by my troth, I know not," Tom said, some distant memory of a dusty lesson dredged up. "But I know to be up late is to be up late."

Dot smiled; he could scarcely see her in the moonlight, which was less bright than before, but he knew she was smiling. A storm was probably on its way; the sky was growing dim and the stars were cloaked in thick cloud, but he was far too contented to move. He would just have to lie out there near Dot, in the rain, and not talk; he couldn't think of many things more pleasant.

When he reached and took her hand (practically, as protection against the falling temperature), he did think, just for a moment, that this might not please her schoolmistresses.

But it didn't matter; she was almost asleep now, and Tom thought that, if he listened hard enough, he could hear the evensong playing in the stillness.

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**A couple of notes: in my personal canon, the Coots meet the Swallows and the Amazons shortly after Great Northern?, when John and Nancy are eighteen and about to head off to Royal Naval College.**

**Also, I know that **_**Coots In The North **_**has them meeting in a different time and setting, but that is incomplete and was published (I believe) posthumously. I therefore feel at liberty to ignore it as not strictly canon.**

**The Shakespeare is taken from **_**Twelfth Night, **_**which is a play that amuses me. "_Diluculo surgere_" is "good for you," according to my sidenotes. Dot's line therefore means "To be awake after midnight is to be up early, and to be up early is healthy, you know." I know it's an obscure joke, but I've always loved it and couldn't resist. Sorry!**

**Credit goes to:-**

** Whoever wrote the jazz standard _Paper Moon, _which inspired this & is mentioned in the summary (I was listening to the Nat King Cole version, which could easily have been written to describe this relationship); **

**Elton John, for "Can You Feel The Love Tonight?" and "Your Song"; 1. and 2. are taken from these songs respectively;**

**Simon & Garfunkel, partially for being excellent, but also for "The 59th Street Bridge Song", which is one of my favourites and gave rise to 3.;**

**Nat King Cole, for "Embraceable You" (I know he probably didn't write it); another favourite of mine, and responsible for 4.;**

**Jack Johnson, for "Better Together"; most romantic song in the world, and I stole 5. from him;**

**Van Morrison, for an interesting anecdote I once heard on Radio 2, and "Moondance" (from which 6. is taken);**

**Most of all, Arthur Ransome, who created these marvellous characters. I really, really don't own them (if I did, there'd be a S&A book set during WWII where everybody marries everybody else).**


End file.
